Ameren Missouri just filed their rate case (Case No. ER-2014-0258) and there's a significant cost shift from residential to commercial customers buried in the numbers. They're proposing to reduce the residential customer charge from $8.50 to $7.00 per month while increasing commercial customer charges by 15-25% across all rate schedules. The justification is "cost of service study results" but I've seen these studies manipulated before. Small commercial customers under Schedule SGS could see $30-50/month increases even with flat usage. Anyone else dealing with similar issues in their territory?
Ameren Missouri Rate Case - Residential vs Commercial Cost Shift
TVA has been doing this for years down here in Alabama. They keep residential rates artificially low for political reasons and shift costs to commercial and industrial customers. The problem is small businesses don't have the political clout that residential customer groups have. Missouri's PSC has historically been pretty good about preventing these kinds of cross-subsidies, but with all the pressure to keep residential rates low, they might cave.
The intervention deadline is August 30th and I haven't seen any commercial groups stepping up yet. The Missouri Retailers Association usually files in these cases but they've been quiet so far. If nobody intervenes, Ameren will probably get exactly what they asked for. This is exactly why commercial customers need professional representation in these proceedings.